Kenta Maeda didn't get his no-hitter against the Brewers in his last start before he took the mound on Monday evening in Cleveland -- and he didn't get the win that night, either, after closer Taylor Rogers blew a three-run lead in the ninth inning, leading to a chaotic 4-3, 12-inning victory that took more than four hours.

Rogers felt bad -- and he made sure Maeda knew that.

In the aftermath of that near-miss, Maeda revealed on his YouTube channel that Rogers left him a handwritten note and a gift of a premium short-grained rice from Japan -- a type and brand that Rogers was told that Maeda particularly enjoyed.

"That was a special game you don’t get to see very often," Rogers said. "Really, just in the moment, it didn’t really hit me, but it was afterwards, kind of realizing how great of a game that could have been for him, and I felt like what I did -- my stamp on it -- kind of tainted his game a little bit."

"It's part of baseball, giving up runs," Maeda said. "Those things do happen. Rogers is a great teammate. He's very hard-working. I have a lot of faith in him. Just because he gave up that run, that doesn't mean that much to me as long as I have faith, which I do."

But Rogers initially had no idea how to make it up to Maeda. He knew he wanted to give some sort of gift, but he hit a snag when athletic trainer Masa Abe told him that Maeda doesn't drink alcohol. To Rogers' surprise, Abe suggested a gift of rice instead.

Rogers, a native Coloradan who attended college at the University of Kentucky, doesn't know the first thing about rice. So he was, naturally, skeptical.

"Well, that doesn’t seem very good," Rogers said. "I don’t know. Give me some something equivalent to a bottle of [vodka] or something."

Abe insisted.

"No, no, that’s for real a thing and he’ll love it," Abe said, according to Rogers. "This is the place that he orders it from, and this is the good stuff."

"I didn’t see the rice, but I also know -- I’ve heard -- that Kenta, he really likes quality high-end Japanese food, and I would assume that rice also plays a huge part in that," said Twins manager Rocco Baldelli.

"I had to trust [Abe]," Rogers said. "I had 100 percent trust in him. He could have been screwing with me this whole time and I would never have known. So I have to thank him for that for not messing with me. I don't know the rice. I just trusted him when he said, 'Get this one.'"

Maeda made it known that he appreciated the gesture and felt no hard feelings at all toward Rogers in the aftermath of the game. Baldelli heard about the gesture after the fact and just hoped that Rogers had gotten the correct rice. (It seems that he did.)

"With good teams that get along really well and have fun and have good relationships and interact in great ways, you can see things like that happening," Baldelli said.

"I didn’t really want any recognition for it," Rogers said. "That was on him to say. But I just wanted to let him know I was sorry and really appreciated his good game and wished I could have finished it off for him, but sometimes that’s not always happening, so just wanted to let him know I was thinking about him.

"It's a big step up for me, buying food. It's a big step. I could have thrown in some plastic forks for him. That could have been a nice touch, too."

Clippard (elbow) 'escaped a very serious situation'
The Twins got positive news Monday regarding veteran reliever Tyler Clippard, who appeared "in about as good a shape, and I think spirits as well, as we could ever ask," Baldelli said, after the right-hander sustained a right elbow contusion after being hit by a 100.5 mph line drive in Sunday afternoon's 5-4 win over Kansas City.

Baldelli said after Sunday's game that initial X-rays done on the elbow came back negative for any damage to the area. He acknowledged that Clippard and the Twins' staff were initially worried due to the knot on the elbow and the discoloration in the triceps area, but the progress overnight and continued treatments have left the club cautiously optimistic.

"What we saw was very positive," Baldelli said. "He was even making some statements that he thinks he could be pitching in the very near future."

Clippard did not land on the injured list on Monday, but Baldelli said the Twins would continue to evaluate the veteran on Monday and Tuesday ahead of making a firm decision.

"It went from a place of everyone being pretty worried about everything and a lot of different scenarios in play to a good place mentally where I think we have some confidence that we may have escaped a very serious situation," Baldelli said.

Frankly, the Twins needed some good injury news coming off a rough week during which they placed Mitch Garver (right intercostal strain), Byron Buxton (left shoulder inflammation), Zack Littell (right elbow inflammation) and Jake Odorizzi (chest contusion) on the 10-day IL, where they joined Cody Stashak (lower back inflammation), Josh Donaldson (right calf strain) and Homer Bailey (right biceps tendinitis, 45-day IL) in a laundry list of maladies that don't appear close to resolution.